Nobel Business
by Aria
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them, and something tells me my student loan won't get them for me.
Rating: PG-13
Feedback policy: Want it, want it all.
Archive Policy: Yes, but tell me where, and keep my name attached.
Author's artistic license: If LA doesn't have a subway or tube system of any kind, I'm inventing one for it. It's run by LA Metro (very imaginative name there). If any of my explosive mumbo doesn't sound right I apologise, it's not my forte, I had to do some research for it. This story actually has a plot!
She couldn't remember when she'd made the cup of coffee, but judging from the taste, it certainly hadn't been recent. The dregs at the bottom of the cup were concentrated and rotten, and it certainly didn't help that they were room temperature. She'd watched the blue bar move from forty- something percent byte by byte and now she wasn't sure what she'd do when it reached a hundred. She looked at the clock in the corner of the computer monitor - 6:04 AM, she'd seen it at 6:04 PM, and 9:56 AM the previous day when she'd logged in.
Nina clapped her hand together as the bar hit 100% and the second screen came up, her report had been encoded and transmitted, and she could go home. She smiled and hit the log off button in the corner of the screen. She pushed her chair off from her desk, and stood up.
Jack walked past her desk, he was early to work, she was late. "Morning Nina." he greeted her, a slightly stubborn, grumpy tone in his voice that had been there a lot recently. "I thought you would have gone home by now, or are you back in?"
"Haven't been home yet," she circled around the desk and picked up the empty coffee cup and closed a manila folder, "finished the breakdown of Develen's accounts - I sent them to division, and there's a copy on your desk."
"I'll read it when I get up there." he commented, pocketing his car keys.
Nina watched the thin layer of black liquid move in her cup as she tilted it, "If you need me to..."
Jack laughed, work was both addictive and the only thing either of them had in their lives. "Go home Nina." he ordered, and began on his way up the stairs.
She nodded, and headed past him towards the board room to deposit her coffee cup, "I'll see you at ten."
Jack turned half way up the stairs, "You came in at ten yesterday."
"Yeah," she commented, not seeing the relevance, or why he had such a quizzical look on his face.
"You're off 'til 2." he told her, taking a step down the stairs.
"Jack, I..."
He cut her off, "I will post you out." he instructed, and took the coffee mug off of her with another step down the stairs. Nina sighed. "Go home." he instructed, and she reluctantly wandered back to her desk to collect her car keys.
Nina noticed the manila folder on her desk and went back behind her workstation to put it in the drawer when her phone rang. She didn't for a second consider leaving it for someone else. "CTU, this is Myers." she answered.
Walsh's voice on the other end of the line. "Nina, it's Richard Walsh, I need you and Jack to work with the FBI on a bomb threat." His voice sounded a little slow, she wondered if he was sleepy.
"Where?" she muttered, without having to put too much thought into her words, and pulled a pen out of her desk caddy, and one of her subordinate's report's from her inbox.
"Briefing's at twenty-two sixty-three San Amelia road." Nina scribbled the details in the printer margin, "They're claiming there's a bomb at an LA metro station, but they won't specify which one. The FBI are helping, as are ATF, but I want Jack to take the lead when you get there."
Nina nodded as she wrote, a habit she was trying to avoid, she pressed the phone into the crook of her ear as the paper she wrote on began to slide. Using her second hand to steady it she finished the initial F "They're waiting for you." Walsh told her.
"Understood." The phone line went dead as Walsh hung up. She placed the receiver back in it's cradle, collected the report in her free hand and made her way towards the board room again, suddenly every step began to feel like her body was protesting.
-24-
Jack Bauer ran his fingers along the corner of the photo frame on his desk, an old photo of his wife, that smiled up at him from the frame with young loving eyes. As opposed to the Teri who frowned down at him that night two months ago and had suggested they should spend some time apart. He was startled when the door to his office opened, and Nina walked in.
Her car keys were pressed against a bundle of typed papers in her right hand, and she had an exhausted look on her face. Her hair looked heavy, and her makeup was all gone, her eyes half-lidded, for the first time he could think of, she actually looked weak. "Walsh called," it was a typical beginning, Walsh, Mason or Chappelle would call, all his senior staffers would come in and they'd be at work nonstop for the next twelve hours. Usually it was his chief of staff who was midshift and functioning whilst everyone else drunk coffee like it was the drink of the gods, but today she'd been caught out of sync. "There's been a bomb threat to the LA metro system - he wants the two of us to work with the FBI and ATF on it."
Jack leant forward a buried his head in his hands for a second. "Where're we meeting?" he grumbled from between his fingers.
"They've set up a base of operations on San Amelia road."
He nodded, an affect that was dampened by his hands. "I can take Tony, you can go get some rest." Jack suggested, raising his head just enough to gauge her reaction. He would have bet and had easy money on her not taking him up on his offer.
"I'd consider it, but Walsh asked for the two of us." she told him. Jack got up and walked over to his computer terminal at the other end of the office. He logged himself off, and then grabbed his jacket out of his open locker. "I'll drive." he told her firmly, "I don't want you falling asleep at the wheel."
-24-
The base of operations on San Amelia road was an old warehouse building. The upstairs floors had rows of dirty square windows and the lower floors had been cut off from outside light probably for decades. There was huge carpark lined with hatchbacks and police cars, all dodgily parked for ease of exit. Jack pulled into the carpark and did exactly the same, parking his SUV across two parking spaces so he could pull straight out without any chance of interruption. Nina closed the report she'd brought with her and sat up a little in her seat. She'd stolen a pen out of his glove-box and scribbled a few notes on it at a stop light back near the office, and now the pen had worked its way into the hair above her ear, one of her nervous habits she only exhibited when tired or drunk.
"Twenty-two sixty-three?" she asked as she compressed the button on her seatbelt and squinted out at the sunrise over San Amelia road.
"Judging from the squad cars." He pulled the keys out of the ignition and pushed his door open. Outside the morning was just beginning to warm up, but his coat was still necessary as he walked around the car and Nina pushed her door shut.
They started over to the building as a distant road crossing began to beep. "Anything you should mention about this before we go in?" he asked as they reached the concrete plateau in front of the door.
"You forgot to lock the car?" she ventured, trying to look up from the early morning sun.
He reached his hand in his pocket and pressed on his car keys. In the distance his car made a loud click and his headlights flashed. "Anything else?"
-24-
Before the glass door had even shut behind them, they could hear the voice of a well known FBI agent. As they walked side by side down the corridor they heard phones ringing and footsteps, and when they rounded the corner, few people were idle enough to notice their presence.
The agent giving orders turned as he spoke and spotted them across the room. He came over quickly, still belting orders out at his 'troops' only quieting when he came to rest in front of Jack. He greeted him by name.
"Hey John," Jack responded, shaking the hand of the older black man. He had a firm grip, and Jack had the sensation he was rescuing his hand when he pulled it away to gesture towards Nina. "This is my chief of staff down at CTU, Nina Myers."
Nina mumbled 'nice to meet you' as she extended her hand and nearly lost it in the vice-grip.
"Nina," Jack began again, "this is John Copell, he's SAIC at the Santa Monica FBI field office."
Nina nodded as she mentally recognised the name, he'd helped out everyone on occasions, he was a good agent. And towering above her by half a foot, she was tempted to believe he was good in the field. He had the build of a football player, but was obviously too old, grey hair literally peppered his head, and his face was gruff - he still had at least a day's worth of stubble on his face, and wrinkles that had been given plenty of time to settle in.
"Shall I bring you up to speed?" he suggested, glancing over the shoulder at the hum of interagency work behind him, which seemed to be going well - not an ego in the room.
"Please do." Jack said and allowed Copell to lead the way to the central cluster of desks.
"Two hours ago, SanMon station's help desk received a telephone call containing only a sequence of telephone touch tones. The clerk at the desk hung up presuming it was a computer or fax dialup." Copell moved to stand in front of a huge analogue recorder. Two barrels of tape, the size of heads, were suspended on it, surrounded by a glass box. A small metallic contraption was in the corner of the box, tape fed through it, and at the base of the box were the speakers and controls. The workers in the room quieted down as he spoke, and many listened to the briefing again. "Just under five minutes later the call came through again. This time it was being recorded for training purposes." He pressed play on the tape machine, it's huge wheels began to rotate, and the voice of a desk clerk came over the tiny speakers.
"Good morning, this Santa Monica station rail and travel - what is your destination please?" The voice was young and female, possibly a high school or college student who worked mornings.
"Listen up this time, bitch." A gruff male voice.
There were no other words, just a sequence of telephone tones, which Copell allowed to play out in full until the caller hung up. "She told security, who called us." Copell glanced over at Nina and Jack before another agent handed him a sheet of paper. "The first sequence of tones at the end of the message correspond to the numbers 52,63876 - which spells out LA Metro, and a few other nonsense words, and then the second sequence, 0226, which the best we can figure is 'Bam' seeing as 'oh' doesn't have any letters."
"What time was the second phone call, exactly?" Nina asked Copell, looking up at Jack, obviously having thought of something.
Copell had that on the paper he'd just been given. He read it off the sheet. "Four - seventeen."
Nina glanced down at her watch, "I make it Six thirty seven now." She glanced around the room, and saw a few other agents look at their watches and nod. She turned back to Copell. "What if he meant 2 hours and 26 minutes, or two hundred and twenty-six minutes, or even two twenty-six tomorrow morning?"
Copell quickly did the math, "That gives us either six minutes, or an hour and a half or a day." he suggested.
"John, you got any stations covered?" Jack piped up, as the agent who'd handed Copell the sheet of paper handed him a red and white FBI file.
"Yeah, two here in Santa Monica, central and Hollywood." Jack nodded as Copell spoke, opening his file up to find a map of the metro network on the first stapled page, someone had put red marker on the four stations they'd stationed guards at.
"Inform security at the other metro stations." Copell ordered a woman in the distance, she was already holding the receiver to her ear.
"If the call was placed to Santa Monica, what makes you sure it's real and not some kid needing an excuse for midterms?" asked Nina, watching as Jack perched himself on the edge of the desk to read his folder.
He didn't even look up from his folder as he spoke. "In England the IRA used to claim and inform of the police, members and the military of their bombs by touch tone sequences." he flicked a page over, "This guy obviously knows a bit about terrorism and tactics, he may even be an ex-IRA officer."
Nina took the pen out of her hair and turned it in her fingers, the group of listeners around them had broken up, Copell had wandered off into the distance somewhere, and so she perched on the desk besides her superior and began to read over his shoulder.
-24-
"They've set up notices in the terminals - you see a discarded bag, report it to station security - sort of thing, and have guys posted over the main entrances and exits, standing in the centre of all open spaces. They're routinely checking all toilets, payphones, but to give you some idea what they're up against, the guy over in Hollywood has been alerted to twelve unaccompanied bags in the last four minutes." Special Agent Johnson tore a piece of paper off of the fax machine as he spoke. He had a heavy new york accent, and a buzz cut that would nearly put a skin-head to shame. Square jawed and square shouldered, Jack was tempted to believe that Agent Johnson had been in the military, a proffesional boxer or both.
"You'd think commuters would know better than to leave their bags unattended." Jack commented to Nina as she was handed a cup of coffee. She nodded as she blew on the black caustic liquid. "What about bins and mail boxes?" he asked.
"None of these stations have mail boxes in the terminal, as for bins, where possible they've been replaced by open topped ones, and all have been emptied in the last two minutes - our agents are trying to keep an eye out for anyone putting anything bigger than a candy wrapper in." Agent Johnson seemed to have everything covered. As Copell's second, Jack wouldn't have expected anything less. Copell had little tolerance for inadequacy, he viewed everything as crucial, the crux of that being that most of the cases he worked on were crucial. If Nina hadn't proved herself to him within thirty seconds of walking through the door, Copell wouldn't have wasted time with her.
She took the fax from Johnson and began reading through it, all the while eagerly draining the coffee in her mug - he could still see steam rising from it, but he didn't see her flinch at it once until she set the coffee mug down on the desk beside her.
"There was a bomb threat called into one of the stations last week?" she inquired, as Johnson began across the room.
He walked back over, "yeah, but that was a hoax - we traced the call back to a dorm payphone, and some students turned up to the station with cameras, they were going to do a piece on the police as an essay."
Nina nodded, effectively giving Johnson permission to leave. No one had said anything yet, but it had pretty much been established that Jack, Copell and Nina were in charge, with Johnson pretty much following their orders. Jack was thankful that there didn't seem to be an ego in sight, nobody had made any comments about CTU, although he suspected that was because there were few who knew of them, rather than that they all had respect for military organisations.
A phone at the opposite end of the room rung, and Jack gave Nina a knowing look - she glanced at her wrist watch, the longer hand was pointing just below the dash for 9, it was 6:43 pm. "It's happened!" called Johnson from the other end of the room, he was hovering over a clerk who was frantically jotting down notes on a scrap of paper. "A sub full of commuters in a tunnel just after the 57th street stop." he called.
They all bolted for the door, Jack grabbed his coat and pulled his car keys out of his jacket pocket. They got out of the building, into his car, and followed the squad cars and black FBI fleet sedans out onto the mainroad.
-24-
by Aria
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them, and something tells me my student loan won't get them for me.
Rating: PG-13
Feedback policy: Want it, want it all.
Archive Policy: Yes, but tell me where, and keep my name attached.
Author's artistic license: If LA doesn't have a subway or tube system of any kind, I'm inventing one for it. It's run by LA Metro (very imaginative name there). If any of my explosive mumbo doesn't sound right I apologise, it's not my forte, I had to do some research for it. This story actually has a plot!
She couldn't remember when she'd made the cup of coffee, but judging from the taste, it certainly hadn't been recent. The dregs at the bottom of the cup were concentrated and rotten, and it certainly didn't help that they were room temperature. She'd watched the blue bar move from forty- something percent byte by byte and now she wasn't sure what she'd do when it reached a hundred. She looked at the clock in the corner of the computer monitor - 6:04 AM, she'd seen it at 6:04 PM, and 9:56 AM the previous day when she'd logged in.
Nina clapped her hand together as the bar hit 100% and the second screen came up, her report had been encoded and transmitted, and she could go home. She smiled and hit the log off button in the corner of the screen. She pushed her chair off from her desk, and stood up.
Jack walked past her desk, he was early to work, she was late. "Morning Nina." he greeted her, a slightly stubborn, grumpy tone in his voice that had been there a lot recently. "I thought you would have gone home by now, or are you back in?"
"Haven't been home yet," she circled around the desk and picked up the empty coffee cup and closed a manila folder, "finished the breakdown of Develen's accounts - I sent them to division, and there's a copy on your desk."
"I'll read it when I get up there." he commented, pocketing his car keys.
Nina watched the thin layer of black liquid move in her cup as she tilted it, "If you need me to..."
Jack laughed, work was both addictive and the only thing either of them had in their lives. "Go home Nina." he ordered, and began on his way up the stairs.
She nodded, and headed past him towards the board room to deposit her coffee cup, "I'll see you at ten."
Jack turned half way up the stairs, "You came in at ten yesterday."
"Yeah," she commented, not seeing the relevance, or why he had such a quizzical look on his face.
"You're off 'til 2." he told her, taking a step down the stairs.
"Jack, I..."
He cut her off, "I will post you out." he instructed, and took the coffee mug off of her with another step down the stairs. Nina sighed. "Go home." he instructed, and she reluctantly wandered back to her desk to collect her car keys.
Nina noticed the manila folder on her desk and went back behind her workstation to put it in the drawer when her phone rang. She didn't for a second consider leaving it for someone else. "CTU, this is Myers." she answered.
Walsh's voice on the other end of the line. "Nina, it's Richard Walsh, I need you and Jack to work with the FBI on a bomb threat." His voice sounded a little slow, she wondered if he was sleepy.
"Where?" she muttered, without having to put too much thought into her words, and pulled a pen out of her desk caddy, and one of her subordinate's report's from her inbox.
"Briefing's at twenty-two sixty-three San Amelia road." Nina scribbled the details in the printer margin, "They're claiming there's a bomb at an LA metro station, but they won't specify which one. The FBI are helping, as are ATF, but I want Jack to take the lead when you get there."
Nina nodded as she wrote, a habit she was trying to avoid, she pressed the phone into the crook of her ear as the paper she wrote on began to slide. Using her second hand to steady it she finished the initial F "They're waiting for you." Walsh told her.
"Understood." The phone line went dead as Walsh hung up. She placed the receiver back in it's cradle, collected the report in her free hand and made her way towards the board room again, suddenly every step began to feel like her body was protesting.
-24-
Jack Bauer ran his fingers along the corner of the photo frame on his desk, an old photo of his wife, that smiled up at him from the frame with young loving eyes. As opposed to the Teri who frowned down at him that night two months ago and had suggested they should spend some time apart. He was startled when the door to his office opened, and Nina walked in.
Her car keys were pressed against a bundle of typed papers in her right hand, and she had an exhausted look on her face. Her hair looked heavy, and her makeup was all gone, her eyes half-lidded, for the first time he could think of, she actually looked weak. "Walsh called," it was a typical beginning, Walsh, Mason or Chappelle would call, all his senior staffers would come in and they'd be at work nonstop for the next twelve hours. Usually it was his chief of staff who was midshift and functioning whilst everyone else drunk coffee like it was the drink of the gods, but today she'd been caught out of sync. "There's been a bomb threat to the LA metro system - he wants the two of us to work with the FBI and ATF on it."
Jack leant forward a buried his head in his hands for a second. "Where're we meeting?" he grumbled from between his fingers.
"They've set up a base of operations on San Amelia road."
He nodded, an affect that was dampened by his hands. "I can take Tony, you can go get some rest." Jack suggested, raising his head just enough to gauge her reaction. He would have bet and had easy money on her not taking him up on his offer.
"I'd consider it, but Walsh asked for the two of us." she told him. Jack got up and walked over to his computer terminal at the other end of the office. He logged himself off, and then grabbed his jacket out of his open locker. "I'll drive." he told her firmly, "I don't want you falling asleep at the wheel."
-24-
The base of operations on San Amelia road was an old warehouse building. The upstairs floors had rows of dirty square windows and the lower floors had been cut off from outside light probably for decades. There was huge carpark lined with hatchbacks and police cars, all dodgily parked for ease of exit. Jack pulled into the carpark and did exactly the same, parking his SUV across two parking spaces so he could pull straight out without any chance of interruption. Nina closed the report she'd brought with her and sat up a little in her seat. She'd stolen a pen out of his glove-box and scribbled a few notes on it at a stop light back near the office, and now the pen had worked its way into the hair above her ear, one of her nervous habits she only exhibited when tired or drunk.
"Twenty-two sixty-three?" she asked as she compressed the button on her seatbelt and squinted out at the sunrise over San Amelia road.
"Judging from the squad cars." He pulled the keys out of the ignition and pushed his door open. Outside the morning was just beginning to warm up, but his coat was still necessary as he walked around the car and Nina pushed her door shut.
They started over to the building as a distant road crossing began to beep. "Anything you should mention about this before we go in?" he asked as they reached the concrete plateau in front of the door.
"You forgot to lock the car?" she ventured, trying to look up from the early morning sun.
He reached his hand in his pocket and pressed on his car keys. In the distance his car made a loud click and his headlights flashed. "Anything else?"
-24-
Before the glass door had even shut behind them, they could hear the voice of a well known FBI agent. As they walked side by side down the corridor they heard phones ringing and footsteps, and when they rounded the corner, few people were idle enough to notice their presence.
The agent giving orders turned as he spoke and spotted them across the room. He came over quickly, still belting orders out at his 'troops' only quieting when he came to rest in front of Jack. He greeted him by name.
"Hey John," Jack responded, shaking the hand of the older black man. He had a firm grip, and Jack had the sensation he was rescuing his hand when he pulled it away to gesture towards Nina. "This is my chief of staff down at CTU, Nina Myers."
Nina mumbled 'nice to meet you' as she extended her hand and nearly lost it in the vice-grip.
"Nina," Jack began again, "this is John Copell, he's SAIC at the Santa Monica FBI field office."
Nina nodded as she mentally recognised the name, he'd helped out everyone on occasions, he was a good agent. And towering above her by half a foot, she was tempted to believe he was good in the field. He had the build of a football player, but was obviously too old, grey hair literally peppered his head, and his face was gruff - he still had at least a day's worth of stubble on his face, and wrinkles that had been given plenty of time to settle in.
"Shall I bring you up to speed?" he suggested, glancing over the shoulder at the hum of interagency work behind him, which seemed to be going well - not an ego in the room.
"Please do." Jack said and allowed Copell to lead the way to the central cluster of desks.
"Two hours ago, SanMon station's help desk received a telephone call containing only a sequence of telephone touch tones. The clerk at the desk hung up presuming it was a computer or fax dialup." Copell moved to stand in front of a huge analogue recorder. Two barrels of tape, the size of heads, were suspended on it, surrounded by a glass box. A small metallic contraption was in the corner of the box, tape fed through it, and at the base of the box were the speakers and controls. The workers in the room quieted down as he spoke, and many listened to the briefing again. "Just under five minutes later the call came through again. This time it was being recorded for training purposes." He pressed play on the tape machine, it's huge wheels began to rotate, and the voice of a desk clerk came over the tiny speakers.
"Good morning, this Santa Monica station rail and travel - what is your destination please?" The voice was young and female, possibly a high school or college student who worked mornings.
"Listen up this time, bitch." A gruff male voice.
There were no other words, just a sequence of telephone tones, which Copell allowed to play out in full until the caller hung up. "She told security, who called us." Copell glanced over at Nina and Jack before another agent handed him a sheet of paper. "The first sequence of tones at the end of the message correspond to the numbers 52,63876 - which spells out LA Metro, and a few other nonsense words, and then the second sequence, 0226, which the best we can figure is 'Bam' seeing as 'oh' doesn't have any letters."
"What time was the second phone call, exactly?" Nina asked Copell, looking up at Jack, obviously having thought of something.
Copell had that on the paper he'd just been given. He read it off the sheet. "Four - seventeen."
Nina glanced down at her watch, "I make it Six thirty seven now." She glanced around the room, and saw a few other agents look at their watches and nod. She turned back to Copell. "What if he meant 2 hours and 26 minutes, or two hundred and twenty-six minutes, or even two twenty-six tomorrow morning?"
Copell quickly did the math, "That gives us either six minutes, or an hour and a half or a day." he suggested.
"John, you got any stations covered?" Jack piped up, as the agent who'd handed Copell the sheet of paper handed him a red and white FBI file.
"Yeah, two here in Santa Monica, central and Hollywood." Jack nodded as Copell spoke, opening his file up to find a map of the metro network on the first stapled page, someone had put red marker on the four stations they'd stationed guards at.
"Inform security at the other metro stations." Copell ordered a woman in the distance, she was already holding the receiver to her ear.
"If the call was placed to Santa Monica, what makes you sure it's real and not some kid needing an excuse for midterms?" asked Nina, watching as Jack perched himself on the edge of the desk to read his folder.
He didn't even look up from his folder as he spoke. "In England the IRA used to claim and inform of the police, members and the military of their bombs by touch tone sequences." he flicked a page over, "This guy obviously knows a bit about terrorism and tactics, he may even be an ex-IRA officer."
Nina took the pen out of her hair and turned it in her fingers, the group of listeners around them had broken up, Copell had wandered off into the distance somewhere, and so she perched on the desk besides her superior and began to read over his shoulder.
-24-
"They've set up notices in the terminals - you see a discarded bag, report it to station security - sort of thing, and have guys posted over the main entrances and exits, standing in the centre of all open spaces. They're routinely checking all toilets, payphones, but to give you some idea what they're up against, the guy over in Hollywood has been alerted to twelve unaccompanied bags in the last four minutes." Special Agent Johnson tore a piece of paper off of the fax machine as he spoke. He had a heavy new york accent, and a buzz cut that would nearly put a skin-head to shame. Square jawed and square shouldered, Jack was tempted to believe that Agent Johnson had been in the military, a proffesional boxer or both.
"You'd think commuters would know better than to leave their bags unattended." Jack commented to Nina as she was handed a cup of coffee. She nodded as she blew on the black caustic liquid. "What about bins and mail boxes?" he asked.
"None of these stations have mail boxes in the terminal, as for bins, where possible they've been replaced by open topped ones, and all have been emptied in the last two minutes - our agents are trying to keep an eye out for anyone putting anything bigger than a candy wrapper in." Agent Johnson seemed to have everything covered. As Copell's second, Jack wouldn't have expected anything less. Copell had little tolerance for inadequacy, he viewed everything as crucial, the crux of that being that most of the cases he worked on were crucial. If Nina hadn't proved herself to him within thirty seconds of walking through the door, Copell wouldn't have wasted time with her.
She took the fax from Johnson and began reading through it, all the while eagerly draining the coffee in her mug - he could still see steam rising from it, but he didn't see her flinch at it once until she set the coffee mug down on the desk beside her.
"There was a bomb threat called into one of the stations last week?" she inquired, as Johnson began across the room.
He walked back over, "yeah, but that was a hoax - we traced the call back to a dorm payphone, and some students turned up to the station with cameras, they were going to do a piece on the police as an essay."
Nina nodded, effectively giving Johnson permission to leave. No one had said anything yet, but it had pretty much been established that Jack, Copell and Nina were in charge, with Johnson pretty much following their orders. Jack was thankful that there didn't seem to be an ego in sight, nobody had made any comments about CTU, although he suspected that was because there were few who knew of them, rather than that they all had respect for military organisations.
A phone at the opposite end of the room rung, and Jack gave Nina a knowing look - she glanced at her wrist watch, the longer hand was pointing just below the dash for 9, it was 6:43 pm. "It's happened!" called Johnson from the other end of the room, he was hovering over a clerk who was frantically jotting down notes on a scrap of paper. "A sub full of commuters in a tunnel just after the 57th street stop." he called.
They all bolted for the door, Jack grabbed his coat and pulled his car keys out of his jacket pocket. They got out of the building, into his car, and followed the squad cars and black FBI fleet sedans out onto the mainroad.
-24-